August 14

Ahhh... So another week goes by! Things this week were a bit anti-climatic, which is probably the best thing we could ask for given our circumstances. We started a new process with our monitoring program/regime. Now in addition to doing ultrasounds to monitor heart, fluid, and fetal movements (including practice breaths) we are now also being hooked up to fetal heart monitors each visit. The heart monitors are these round discs that get placed on my abdomen (one above each baby) that are then held in place by velcro straps. In addition to those 2 discs they also place another disc on the remaining free space of skin to monitor contractions.

So far so good! The babies are always moving around so their heart rates go from 130 to 140's and then 000 because they have moved away somehow. The hardest thing about the whole process is breathing. This is because they have me in a reclined position each time. On Thursday I had Kevin move my chair more up-right and it was far more bearable. Kevin's enjoyment out of the fetal heart monitoring on Thursday was that he got to lay down on a couch and get a catnap for 20 minutes or so.... that is after he breezed through the interesting magazines in the room.

We asked our perinatologist this week if there was any indication of when the babies would arrive. He said that there was no way of knowing, but that doing the monitoring multiple times per week would improve our chances of both of them making it as far as possible. So right now we have little goals make is to 32 weeks. Tuesday will be the mark of 31 weeks... so we are looking like we will make it to our first goal ok, provided I can lay-low.

On another note, this weekend is my first real weekend away from the Tri races. I'm not use to being home when it comes to these summer weekends. So I feel a bit tense not being at race site even though I know the staff is doing a killer job without me there. Titan is kind of bummed too... he misses being race dog and snaking a few rogue bagels that the athletes tend to disgard on the ground. Atleast we have each other to keep company with... as well as some awesome neighbors and friends who have been so very kind in helping us out now that I am on lock-down.
That is all the news for this week :)